Problem solved

I've always felt lonely but since Mum died three years ago I feel worse. I've distanced myself from family and friends and don't know how to reach out – my husband's my only support and if he left I'd be all alone

I am almost 43, have no children and live quite a distance from my family – my choice. I have experienced loneliness all my life and since my mum died three and a half years ago, these feelings have intensified. A lot has happened recently. I had a job and career change four years ago; I moved away from the area I had lived in for 10 years to live with my boyfriend and, eight months later, discovered he had been sleeping with someone else. Less than three weeks after that, my mum went into hospital for routine tests and died 36 hours later.

Mum was my biggest fan, the one person who made everything OK, who ever worried about me and had any idea how adrift I often felt. Since her death, life has been a rollercoaster. I was only eight months into my new job and career when Mum died and my workmates were unsupportive.

My stepdad was distraught and I talked to him every day on the phone and visited. My sister had a mini-breakdown in that year and I was not there for her – I still feel guilty.

The day Mum was interred, my boyfriend asked me to marry him – he had been distressed by my grief over his infidelity. We got married six months after Mum died. Since then we have moved house three times.

My friends have not featured at all; my closest friends were living abroad and the others proved not so good at dealing with grief. Dad is undergoing tests for dementia, which is not ideal.

Work is fine. My husband is largely lovely and sensitive to my mood, but after a stressful 16 months himself is tired and distant. He's currently my only support and friend. I am frightened – if he were to leave me who else would I have? No one from my circle of contacts has been in touch for months – I always make the calls. I guess they assume I am OK.

I feel completely adrift, deeply empty and frightened, but have no idea how to begin filling the void. I do want to connect with people; the past few years have tested my confidence and I am slightly fearful of not being liked. C, via email

So many huge things have happened to you. The death of a parent can send you into a tailspin and that's before adding in infidelity, a new career, moving house and your father being ill.

I was left wondering: have you properly grieved for your mother or just tried to paper over the cracks? You cannot cheat grief. It is a profound and complicated emotional response that can reveal itself in many ways. Conversely, I also wonder if you feel that getting on with your life means being disloyal to your mother's memory?

Have you ever really thought about yourself and what fulfils you? In going along with what everyone else wants you eventually lose what defines you. You need to see that you have chosen to do certain things that have distanced you from family and friends: moving away, changing career, etc. How do you think they see it? You're right – they may think you're fine.

Carmen Ablack, an integrative psychotherapist (ukcp.org.uk) thinks that in being sensitive to the needs of others, you have subjugated your own distress. Ablack also feels that the loneliness we may feel after losing a parent (and facing the loss of another) can be overwhelming: "It is entirely normal to feel unable to deal with all the emotional responses that arise. You are on the cusp of facing what it might mean to be without your parents, this is deeply challenging and not something that many can face without external support."

Try to reach out to one friend at a time, perhaps one, Ablack suggests, that you are most comfortable with, via a medium you are comfortable with: "What would take you one step out of your comfort zone but not into a no zone?"

Do this every week so that you're not putting the emphasis on just one person and waiting for them to get back to you. Remember that to gain confidence in something, you need to do it often. There's a difference between burdening people and sharing information. Counselling, with the right person, could be your place to "unburden", leaving you free to use friendships for a bit more levity.